Adobe Lightroom Beta 1 appears to be Adobe's answer to Apple's recently
released Aperture Software, providing a complete RAW workflow solution
for digital photographers that has never really been addressed by
Photoshop and Adobe Camera RAW.

This Beta version of Adobe Lightroom is not a finished piece
of software, Adobe are looking to receive feedback from photographers
before the first finished version is released. The license for this
Beta software expires at the end of June 2006.

Adobe Lightroom Beta 1 can be downloaded for free from the Adobe Labs
website here

Abode provide a FAQ on Lightroom Beta 1 which answers most common
questions about this software.

Adobe Lightroom Beta 1
FAQ:
What is Lightroom Beta?
Adobe Lightroom Beta is a new, exciting product built from the ground
up for professional photographers. It is an efficient, powerful way to
import, select, develop and showcase large volumes of digital images.
It allows you to spend less time sorting and organizing images, so you
have more time to actually shoot and perfect them. Project Lightroom
aims to get direct product feedback from the photography community, via
our new Adobe Labs web site, so that photographers will have a huge say
in what Adobe actually ships.

Why Lightroom Beta?
To put it simply, Adobe Lightroom is unfinished. We want to make it
available to you now, so you can tell us what you like, what
youd like betterso you can help us shape it into
as close to the perfect photographers application as we can
possibly get. We also recently launched the Adobe Labs web site, as a
venue for showcasing and releasing emerging technologies. Lightroom is
the first end-user application to be made available through the Adobe
Labs web site.
What is Adobe Labs?
Adobe Labs in the next generation of Macromedia Labs, which launched in
October 2005 to share early technology access with software developers.
Now that Macromedia is part of Adobe, Adobe Labs takes on the broader
goal of being the source for early looks at emerging products and
technologies from Adobe, including Project Lightroom. And not just for
developers, but for technology enthusiasts everywhere. Here you can get
early access to downloads, samples, documentation, release notes,
tutorials and more. You can also ask questions, discuss, and share your
feedback with Adobe.
Who will use Lightroom Beta?
First and foremost, Lightroom is the product professional photographers
have been demanding, especially those who deal with large volumes of
digital images. These include fashion and portrait photographers,
photojournalists, wedding, landscape and commercial photographers. To
these add the seasoned personal photographers who aspire to achieving
the same results as the pros, and who demand the same level of quality
in their tools.

How does Lightroom Beta
differ from Adobe Photoshop CS2?
Adobe Photoshop CS2 is, and will continue to be, the industry standard
in digital image editing. Photoshop will always hold an important place
in the pro photographers toolbox, for detailed image editing
and compositing. However, photographers face a variety of workflow
concerns beyond image editing. The Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw
components of Photoshop CS2 began solving these problems in recent
years. Now, Lightroom takes these concepts further, in a very
photographer-centric way. Lightroom is also different from Photoshop in
terms of its software architecture. Developers and customers have long
appreciated the ability to extend Photoshop functionality through
third-party plug-ins and scripting support. Lightroom draws
on the lessons learned through Photoshop and has been designed from the
ground up with a fully modular architecture. All of the tasks you see
in Lightrooms main interfaceLibrary, Develop,
Slideshow, and Printare actually independent modules that
have full control over your images, and which can use the entire screen
to show you just the tools you need for the task at hand.

If Lightroom has a
modular architecture, can third parties develop for it?
In the future, Adobe will be releasing a developer SDK for Lightroom,
so that third parties can create additional modules that extend the
application and the workflow in groundbreaking ways.

Does Lightroom replace
Adobe Bridge or Camera Raw?
For some, it might. Having an interface that is 100% tuned to the
photography workflow, plus the unique features that will be in
Lightroom, will mean some people will use Lightroom in place of Bridge.
On the other hand, some photographers will need or want the broad image
capabilities of Adobe Bridgesuch as integration with Adobe
Creative Suite 2, previewing PDF, InDesign and
Illustrator documents, and workgroup management tools. Some or
all of the time, these people will continue to use Adobe Bridge.

Why dont my
Raw images look the same in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom Beta?
Lightroom uses a different method of implementing the current Adobe
Camera Raw controls. We intend to have great XMP compatibility with
Bridge and Photoshop by our final version 1.0 release of Lightroom, but
complete XMP compatibility is not yet achieved in this first beta
release.

Will Lightroom Beta be
compatible with Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop Elements?
Yes. Images handled by Adobe Lightroom will be editable in Photoshop
CS2 or Photoshop Elements. Some non-photography file formats usable in
Photoshop and Photoshop Elements will not be supported by Lightroom,
but this is in keeping with the mandate of Lightroom as a
photographers application. Lightroom does provide a somewhat
different approach to image adjustments than Photoshop, however, and
this initial beta release is somewhat experimental. Thus, users should
expect the integration between Photoshop and Lightroom to evolve over
time.

What are the system
requirements?
Adobe Lightroom Beta requires Mac OS X version 10.4.3 (Tiger) or
higher, a 1GHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor (including iBook G4
or PowerBook G4), and 768 MB of RAM (although more is recommended), and
1 GB or more of free hard drive space. Windows requirements will be
announced when that version is ready.

What about a Windows
version?
A Windows version of Lightroom is already under development, but is not
yet ready for its public debut. The final, packaged versions for both
platforms should be released within a few months of each other. As
Microsoft is gearing up for a major operating system transition, and
since Lightroom is a brand new product from Adobe, we are spending
extra time on the Windows side to deliver the best design that will
support our Windows customers today, while also building for the future.

Is Lightroom Beta an
image editing tool or a workflow productivity tool?The concept behind Lightroom is to provide a single
environment that has all of the functions photographers most commonly
need to perform on their images. But were not interested in
trying to pack more knobs and switches into Lightroom than Aperture, or
than in Photoshop for that matter. The goal of Lightroom is to have the
RIGHT knobs and switches, in the cleanest, least cluttered, easiest to
use package. Its not about having every tool in the hardware
store. Its about having a focused set of features that are
just right for photography, are intuitive, powerful, and easy to learn.
So yes, its an image editing tool, and its a
workflow productivity tool.

Are there any training
materials available?
One of the goals of Project Lightroom is to create an application that
is so easy to use, you may never even look at the user manual. A basic
tenet of the product team is that a new user should be able to get up
and running easily after learning no more than five basic rules about a
new application. Thus, Lightroom displays its five rules prominently
when the application is first launched. Basic information about using
Lightroom is contained in the Release Notes available with the product
download. There is also a discussion forum accessible via links on the
same web page. We encourage you to ask questions and talk about your
experiences with Lightroom, as Lightroom product team members will be
participating as well.

How can I download a copy
of Lightroom Beta?
You can choose to download only a copy of the Lightroom application, or
the application along with some sample content to get you started.
Download Adobe Lightroom beta.

When will Lightroom ship?
Our current intention is to ship a 1.0 version of Lightroom later this
year, but frankly, were not sure. We are seeking user input
so we can be sure weve got it right. Photographer workflows
can be varied and complex, and we believe the best solution can only be
delivered after extensive input from pro photographers. So download,
install, and comment on Lightroom. Well ship it when you
tell us its ready.

How will developers
create modules of their own? What kind of third-party support will
Adobe offer?
Because Adobe Lightroom is being built using an entirely new open
modular architecture, third-party vendors will be able to develop
modules that plug directly into the Lightroom workflow, and work as
first-class citizens with the Adobe-built modules. This will enable
developers to deliver valuable enhancements and custom workflows for
specialized digital photography requirements. After the final product
is released, an SDK for Lightroom will be made available.

What file formats will
Lightroom support?
Over 100 native camera raw file formats, DNG, TIFF and
JPEGin other words, the formats primarily used in digital
cameras, and more of them than any other developer. See a complete list
of manufacturers and models supported in Camera Raw.

Why is Lightroom unable
to read the white balance settings for my Nikon D50, D2X or D2Hs
cameras?
These three camera models require additional support from Nikon. Adobe
Systems and Nikon worked together to provide support for those cameras
in Adobe Camera Raw, however Lightroom is a tool designed on an
entirely new coding platform, and we are currently working with Nikon
to provide a solution that will work with it, and will implement that
solution in a later beta release.

Why dont my
Camera Raw images look the same in Photoshop and Lightroom?Lightroom leverages much of the same, core Adobe Camera
Raw technology used in Photoshop. We will be addressing these
differences later in the beta program.

Will Lightroom be
available in languages other than English?
Yes. Adobe is a leader in delivering high-quality, localized versions
of its software. Specific languages supported will be announced closer
to the release of those versions.

When will the beta
version of Adobe Lightroom expire?
The first release of Adobe Lightroom Beta will expire in June, 2006.
However, additional beta versions with appropriate expiration dates
will be released throughout the life of the project, so that
photographers who have come to rely on the beta version will not have
an interruption in their ability to use Lightroom.

I thought
beta meant feature
complete. Is Lightroom complete?
The technical term, beta software, generally
means that the software is feature complete, but not yet fully tested.
This Lightroom Beta 1 is actually not yet feature
complete, so it is not a beta in the technical sense of the word.
However, the general public understands beta to mean
unfinished software that is not yet ready to be
shipped, so weve decided to call this a beta. We
will finalize the feature set based on the input we receive from you,
the people who use it first.

Will Lightroom run on
Intel-based Macintoshes?
We already have a version of the Lightroom beta running internally at
Adobe on an Intel-based Macintosh, but the version we are initially
posting to Adobe Labs only supports PowerPC-based Macs. We
dont want to release to the public a version of Lightroom
that runs on Intel-based Macs until Apple is shipping these systems,
because there is always the possibility that there could be changes in
the final shipping systems. We want to be able to test Lightroom on a
production version of these new systems prior to making it publicly
available.

Adobe Lightroom Beta 1
Minimum Requirements

Power PC G4 processor

Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)

768 MB memory

1024 x 768 resolution screen

Known Issues for Beta 1

There are some known issues with the application currently. These
include:General

It is important to not delete the Journal file next to your
database file.

When using Lightroom with hundreds of shoots, or multiple
thousand of photos, the app can be sluggish.

Some undo functions show the wrong text when undoing.

Mouse scroll wheel does not work in the side panels.

Import

Lightroom does not read the encrypted data in some Nikon
NEF files.

Import can be sluggish. We're working on it.

If you have a Tiff file and a JPEG file in the same
directory with the same name (but different extentions) , Lightroom
will treat the JPEG file as a sidecar file.

External HD with DCIM in root causes auto Import function
that can not be stopped for a very, very long time on Powerbooks only.

With some Canon Rebel XT cameras, you cannot directly
import into Lightroom from the camera.

8 Bit Grayscale files do not import correctly.

Library

If you edit a file in Photoshop, the EXIF copyright field
may gain some garbage characters.

If you have no shoots, or your search results turn up no
shoots, the count of shoots in the header reads 1 not zero.

Slideshow

If you want to drag and drop a photo on a slide to use as a
backdrop to a slideshow, you must be in Slide view in Slideshow, not
Grid view.

The Shoot name token is not working you will
get nothing if you use it.

Identity plates are not exported with the slideshow.

In export via FTP upload, if your path does not end with a
/ (slash), the upload will go into the wrong
directory.

Print

The File > New > New Template menu in Print
does not work.

If you bring many files into Print via the Filmstrip, Print
will become sluggish.

Export

The Shoot name token is broken. It will always add the text
{image_shoot} to the filename.